"My daughter-in-law left some clothes behind. If you don't mind, mistress, you could try them on. They'll probably fit."
Zhou Qi went to change. When she came out, she saw Xu was already asleep in the old woman's room.
Towards evening, Xu began babbling incoherently, Zhou Qi felt his forehead and found it feverish. She decided his wounds must be festering. She knew such a condition was extremely dangerous, and turned to the old woman. "Is there a doctor near here?" she asked.
"Yes, there is, in Wenguang town about twenty li east of here," the old woman replied. "The most capable one is Doctor Cao, but he never comes out to country places like this to see patients."
"I'll go and fetch him," Zhou Qi said. "I'll leave my...my brother here. Please keep an eye on him."
"Don't you worry about that, miss," the old woman replied. "But the doctor won't come."
Zhou Qi stowed her sword beside the horse's saddle and galloped off. Night had already fallen when she entered Wenguang town.
She asked a passer-by where Doctor Cao lived, then galloped straight on to his residence. She knocked on the door for a long time before a man finally opened it.
"It's already dark. What are you banging on the door like that for?" the man demanded.
Zhou Qi was furious at his manner, but remembered that she was appealing for help. "I've come to ask Doctor Cao to visit a patient," she said, controlling herself.
"He's not in," said the man. Without another word, he turned and began to close the door.
Panic-striken, Zhou Qi pulled him out of the doorway and drew her sword. "Where's he gone to? Quickly!"
"He's gone to Little Rose's," the man replied in a quavering voice.
Zhou Qi brushed the blade over his face. "What is Little Rose's?"
The man was frantic with fright. "Your Excellency...Miss, Little Rose is a prostitute," he said.
"Prostitutes are bad people. What's he gone to her place for?" Zhou Qi asked.
The man wanted to laugh at the sight of this girl who was so ferocious and yet so ignorant of worldly matters, but he did not dare. "She is a good friend of our master," he said.
"Lead me there quickly."
With the sword resting on his neck, he dared not disobey and led her off down the street.
"This is it," he said, pointing to a small house.
"Knock on the door. Tell the doctor to come out."
The man did as she said, and the door was opened by the Madame of the house.
"This lady wants my master to go to visit a patient," the man said. "I told her the master was busy, but she wouldn't believe me and forced me to come here."
The Madame gave him a look of contempt and slammed the door.
Zhou Qi rushed forward to stop her, but was too late. She beat thunderously on the door for a while, but not a sound came from inside. Absolutely furious, she kicked the man to the ground.
"Get lost!" she shouted.
The man picked himself up and ran off.
Zhou Qi waited until he had disappeared then leapt over the wall into the courtyard of the house. She saw light coming from a room nearby, and stealthily made her way over towards it. Crouching down, she heard two men talking. She licked the tip of her finger, then wet a small part of the window paper and made a hole in it. Putting her eye to the hole, she saw two men lying on a couch, talking. One was stout, and the other thin and tall. A tartishly seductive girl was pummelling the thin man's thighs. The stout man give a wave of his hand and the girl stood up.
"I can see you two want to discuss more ways of creating mischief," she said with a smile. "You ought to accumulate some good deeds, otherwise you may give birth to sons without arseholes."
"Damned nonsense," the stout man shouted back with a laugh. The girl smiled and walked out, locked the door, then turned and went into an inner hall.
"That must be Little Rose," Zhou Qi thought. "She's really shameless, but there's some truth in what she said."
She watched as the stout man pulled out four silver ingots and placed them on the table.
"Brother Cao," he said. "There's two hundred taels of silver. We are old business partners, and that's the old price."
"Master Tang," the thin man replied: "Take these two packets of medicine, and have a good time. The red packet you give to the girl, and in less time than it takes to eat a meal, she will be unconscious to the world and you can do whatever you like with her. You don't need me to teach you anything about that, do you?"
The two men laughed together.
"This black packet you give to the man," Cao continued. "Tell him it will speed his recovery. Soon after he takes it, his wounds will begin discharging blood and he will die. It will appear that his wounds have simply re-opened and no-one will suspect you. What do you think of such a ruse?"
"Excellent, excellent," Tang replied.
"So, Master Tang, you have gained both the girl and the money. Doesn't two hundred taels seem like rather a small reward for such a service?"
"We are brothers, and I wouldn't try to deceive you," the other said. "The girl certainly has a pretty face. I could hardly restrain myself even when I thought she was a boy because of the way she was dressed. But there is nothing much special about the man, except that he's with the girl, so I cannot allow him to live."
"Didn't you say he had a flute made out of gold?" Cao asked. "That flute must weigh several catties alone."
"All right, all right, I'll add another fifty taels," Tang said, and pulled out another ingot.
Zhou Qi became angrier and angrier as she listened, and ran to the door, kicked it open and charged straight inside. Tang gave a shout and aimed a flying kick at Zhou Qi's sword wrist. Zhou Qi flipped the sword over and smoothly cut off his right foot then thrust the blade into his heart.
The thin man stood to one side, struck dumb with fright. His whole body shook and his teeth chattered. Zhou Qi pulled her sword out of Tang's corpse and wiped the blood off the blade onto his clothes, then grabbed the thin man.
"Are you Doctor Cao?" she shouted. The man's legs folded and he fell to his knees.
"Please...miss...spare my life..."
"Who wants your life? Get up."
Cao shakily stood up, but his knees were still rubbery, and he had to kneel down again. Zhou Qi put the five silver ingots and two packets of medicine on the table into her pocket.
"Out," she ordered.
She told him to fetch his horse, and the two mounted up and galloped out of the town. In less than two hours, they arrived at the old woman's hut. Zhou Qi ran to Xu and found him still unconscious. In the candlelight, she could see his whole face was bright red and knew he had a terrible fever. She dragged Cao over.
"My, er, brother here has been wounded. Cure him quickly," she ordered.
Hearing that he was expected to give medical treatment, Cao's fears eased slightly. He looked at Xu's complexion and took his pulse, then undid the bandage round his shoulder and looked at the wound. He shook his head.
"The master is deficient in both blood and breath," he said. "His body heat is rising..."
"Who wants to hear all that?" Zhou Qi interrupted him. "You just cure him quickly. If you don't, you can forget about ever leaving here."
"I'll go to the town to get some medicine," Cao said. "Without medicine I cannot do anything."
Xu awoke and he lay listening to the two talking.
"Huh, do you think I'm a three-year-old child?" Zhou Qi demanded. "You make out the prescription and I'll go and buy the medicine."
Cao had no alternative. "Well, please bring me a pen and paper, Miss," he said.
But where was pen and paper to be found in such a poor hut in such a desolate place? Zhou Qi frowned, at a loss for what to do.
"The master's condition will not allow delay," said Cao with an air of complacency. "It would be best if you let me return to the town to get the medicine."
"Sister," Xu said, "Take a small piece of firewood and burn it to charcoal, then let him write on a piece of rough paper. If that can't be done, you could write on a piece of wood."
"What a good idea!" Zhou Qi exclaimed happily, and burnt up a piece of firewood as he had said. The old woman searched out a piece of yellow paper originally meant to be burnt in worship of Buddha, and Cao made out the prescription. When he had finished, Zhou Qi found a length of grass rope and tied his hands behind his back, bound his legs together and put him on the floor next to Xu.
"I'm going to the town to buy medicine," she told the old woman as she placed Xu's sword beside his pillow. If this dog doctor tries to escape, wake up my brother and he can kill him."
Zhou Qi rode back to the town and found a medicine shop. She shouted for the shop-keeper to open up and got him to fill the prescription, which was for more that ten different types of medicine.
The sky was growing light. She saw village militiamen patrolling the streets and guessed that the murder at Little Rose's had been discovered. She shrank into a corner and waited until they had passed before galloping off.
As soon as she had returned to the old woman's hut, she hastily brewed up the medicine then poured it into a rough bowl and took it over to Xu. She shook him awake and told him to drink the medicine.
Xu was extremely moved at the sight of her face covered with sweat and ash and her hair filled with twigs and grass. He knew she was the daughter of a rich family and would never before have had to do this sort of work. He sat up and took the bowl from her and passed it over to Cao.
"You drink two mouthfuls," he said. Cao hesitated slightly and Zhou Qi realised Xu's meaning.
"Yes, yes," she said. "He must drink some first. You don't know how evil this man is," she added to Xu.
Cao opened his mouth and drank two mouthfuls.
"Rest for a while, sister," said Xu. "I'll wait a while before drinking the medicine."
"Yes," said Zhou Qi. "Let's see if he dies first. If he dies, you mustn't drink the medicine."
She moved the oil lamp next to Cao's face and watched him with her big, black, unblinking eyes to see whether he would die or not.
"We doctors have the best interest of our patients at heart. Why would I want to harm him?" Cao said, smiling bitterly.
"That secret discussion you had with that man Tang about harming some girl and getting hold of someone else's golden flute, I heard it all," Zhou Qi said angrily. "Do you deny it?"
Xu's ears pricked up at the mention of a golden flute and he quickly asked her about it. Zhou Qi related the conversation she had heard, and how she had killed a man at Little Rose's.
Xu asked Cao: "Who is the person with the Golden flute? And who is the girl who was dressed as a boy?"
Zhou Qi drew her sword and stood by him threateningly. "If you don't tell us everything you know, I'll run you through with my sword immediately," she told him.
"I...I'll tell you," said Cao, absolutely terrified. "Yesterday Master Tang came to see me and said that two people had asked to take lodgings at his home. He said one was very badly wounded and the other was a pretty youngster. At first he was unwilling to take them in, but seeing how extraordinarily beautiful the youngster was, he let them stay for one night. He noticed the youngster's voice and manner were just like a girl's. Also, the youngster wasn't willing to share a room with the other, so he concluded it must be a girl dressed in boy's clothes."
"So you sold him some poison," Zhou Qi said.
"I deserve to die," replied Cao.
"What was the man like?" Xu asked.
"Master Tang asked me to examine him. He was about twenty-three or four, dressed as a scholar, and had sword and club wounds in seven or eight places."
"Were the wounds serious?" asked Xu.
"Very serious. But they were all external wounds. He wasn't wounded on any fatal points."
Xu saw he would not gain much by continuing the questioning and gingerly raised the bowl of medicine. But his hands shook and some of the medicine slopped out. Zhou Qi took the bowl from him and raised it to his mouth. He drank the brew down as she held the bowl, then thanked her.
"These two bandits are not brother and sister," Cao thought as he watched. "Whoever heard of a brother saying thank you to his sister?"
After drinking the medicine, Xu slept for a while, his whole body sweating profusely, and towards evening, the sickness began to recede. The next day, Xu was more than half recovered and he was able to get up.
After another day, he decided he could just about manage to ride a horse.
"That man with the golden flute is Fourteenth Brother," he said to Zhou Qi. "I wonder why he should seek lodgings with such a man? But seeing as you've already killed Tang, they shouldn't have had too much trouble. But I'm still a little worried. Let's go tonight and see what the situation is."
"Fourteenth Brother?" Zhou Qi asked.
"'Scholar' Yu. He was also at Iron Gall Manor. You've seen him before."
"Oh, if I had known it was him I would have brought him along with me, then the two of you could have convalesced together."
Xu smiled. "But who could this girl dressed in boy's clothing be?" he wondered, mystified.
That evening, Zhou Qi gave the old woman two of the silver ingots and she accepted them with effusive blessings and thanks. Zhou Qi then pulled Cao up, and with a swish of her blade, cut off his right ear.
"I'm only sparing your worthless life because you cured my brother," she shouted. "If I ever catch you doing evil again,I'll stick my sword straight into your heart."
"We'll visit you again in three months time, to check up," Xu warned.
